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four hours in descending. The sky was
without a cloud, and the air was of a delightful
temperature, genial and invigorating.
The highest mountains of this Alpine
range were immediately above us, on onr
left, and the dazzling whiteness of the
snow, contrasted with the deep azure of the
heavens, was too powerful for the eyes long
to rest upon. The pines became stunted
in their growth as we ascended, and disappeared
entirely before we gained the
summit of the pass, which is above the
zone of trees. The first part of the ascent
may be said to be on the side of the
Eiger, and is directly under the lofty walls
of limestone, that form the middle region
of that mountain, below the line of perpetual
snow. When we had gained the
ascent, the three giants of the Swiss Alps,
the Monk^Eiger, the Silver Horn, and
the Jungfrau, were only separated from
us by a narrow chasm, or valley, nearly a
mile in depth, into which the avalanches
were falling, in rapid succession, from one
or other of these colossal masses. The
noise was indescribably deep and awful,
reverberating in long and repeated echoes,
which might truly be called the music of
the mountains, and was in perfect harmony
with the vast sublimity of the scene. To
these deep echoes succeeded a solemn
silence, till again an appalling crash, from
another part of the range, was repeated by
louder echoes, responding from mountain
to mountain. It would have required no
very poetic imagination to have heard
amid these sounds the mighty genii of the
Alps, holding converse together in an awful
language, that spoke of the feebleness
of human power, compared with the force
and immensity of nature.
All that 1 had hitherto witnessed in the
Alps, sunk ill comparison with the scene
before me. Nowhere, in that vast range,
can the two senses of sight and hearing
receive a more powerful combined impression
of the sublime; but to experience this
fully, certain conditions are required. To
the clearness of the atmosphere must be
conjoined the proper season, and hour of
the day. The latter end of summer, when
the sky is clear, every day, between the
hours of two and four, the avalanches
begin to fall, and are greater and more
numerous in proportion to the warmth of
the weather.